New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority board on Wednesday passed its $13.5 billion
Allan Cappelli of New York's Staten Island borough, and three other board members pushed for the service restorations, but the majority agreed for the finance committee to recommend a restoration sum in June, when the annual budget process begins.
MTA chairman Thomas Prendergast, speaking 17 days after a Metro-North Railroad detrailment in the Bronx killed four persons, cited safety concerns. "It has to be safe, reliable service," said Prendegast. "I'm still shaken to the core about things that have happened."
Several agencies, including the Federal Railroad Administration, are investigating the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the train was going 82 miles per hour as it approached the 30-mph Spuyten Duyvil curve.
Finance committee chairman Andrew Saul warned about overall budget limitations. "This is not exactly a flush agency," he said. "We will be burdened with $38 billion of debt that will have all kinds of implications if interest rates rise."
Moody's assigns an A2 rating to the MTA's transportation revenue bonds, its primary credit, while Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's rate them A.
While the board essentially rubber-stamped the spending plan that authority finance officials presented last month, Wednesday's meeting was far from perfunctory.
The session included an emotional appeal by Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen to negotiate in good faith for a new labor contract that includes retroactive back pay. He issued a veiled threat of a strike without actually using the word, other than referencing the December 2005 three-day walkout that violated the state Taylor Law. The union's leadership recently vowed to "take any action necessary" should the authority and union not settle.
"We struck in '05 and this time tried to save the riding public the anxiety of this kind of saber-rattling, but clearly the MTA has not reciprocated our good intentions," said Samuelsen, who delivered what he said were signatures of 30,000 riders.
Prendergast told reporters after the meeting that he would rather avoid binding arbitration. "If we find that we have to go to arbitration we will do so, but it's not our desire," he said.
The MTA is hinging its budget on three straight years of "net-zero" budgeting, which essentially would involve trading reduced benefits and work-rules and efficiency changes to match pay raises. Last month, chief financial officer Robert Foran said the authority would reduce its biennial fare and toll hikes for 2015 and 2017 to 4% from 7.5%.
The budget invests $80 million in 2013 and $30 million in 2014 and thereafter to cover unfunded pension liability related to Long Island Rail Road employees; accelerates $100 million in repayment to the capital finance fund from 2016 to 2013; makes additional contributions to the capital program of $60 million in 2014 and $120 million in 2105 and each year thereafter; and uses $160 million of pay-as-you-go, or Paygo, funding to finance the local share of Hurricane Sandy-related recovery and resiliency costs.
